Category: Uncategorized

Our children push and prod us into modern technology. Not that we drag our feet. After my first college course in computers, I insisted we buy a home computer. Their college years introduced us all to email. I opened an account and flooded them with emails. Working at the newspaper I had to keep up…

It caught me by surprise a couple years ago when my son Nate turned to his 12 year-old daughter and said, “Sophie grab the other end of this chest and help me move it.” Say what?! This kid who still needs daily parental guidance can help her parents move heavy furniture?  The same day whenever…

“Whether the weather be cold. Or whether the weather be hot. We’ll weather the weather, whatever the weather, whether we like it or not.” This old tongue twister recited in the middle of an otherwise unmemorable lecture caught my attention. I sat up and scribbled it down quickly and since then have quoted, especially at…

            A bright spot of joy left our family recently when my Aunt Erma slipped into eternity last week.  She married Bert, my dad’s twin brother, and settled onto his family farm. My mom and aunt often visited. Toward the end one visit, Aunt Erma exclaimed, “Whew! I don’t know when I have talked this much!”…

Some days my cooking requires innovation as I apply the adage: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” Take the day I grabbed a can with a green label to make green beans for supper. I cranked it around on the can opener, pulled off the lid and saw potatoes.…

As a retirement hobby, my husband and I sell on Ebay. It gives us an excuse to buy and gather items that interest us and then pass them along to someone else. While I enjoy the shopping, my husband enjoys packing. He wakes up many mornings asking, “Did we sell anything?” He really likes to…

    The big 4-0 creeps ever closer for my darling daughter. The calendar does not measure the big event so much as the change in her mindset. She called me this morning to say, “I am becoming my parents.” and proceeded to tell me a couple stories.     Yesterday afternoon she was headed to the…

Nothing like clearing the clutter to provide a trip down memory lane. During a recent purge of the desk. I filled a bag with carbon copies of used check pads. “Why write checks with carbon copies?” you ask. “Because we often forget to record every check,” we answer.  After trying to recall yet another check,…

“Many hands make light work” especially the work preceding any community event. Recently I enjoyed the work of others preparing the Wildlife Game Banquet at Marrable Hill Chapel. Except for the bit of food I brought to share, I sat back and relished their handiwork. For instance, Karen Webb spent weeks planning and preparing unique…

The century old recipe book I picked up recently demonstrates the challenges my grandmother faced in the kitchen as a young bride. In 1907 the St. Katherine’s Guild of Grace Church in Oak Park, Ill. collated a hard bound church cookbook of “Tested Recipes.” Even with decades of kitchen experience, that cookbook challenged me. “Popovers…

Count the 370 words added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary this year. Each entered the dictionary after folks used the word in speech and/or writing. Sus became part of our language as lazy folks cut short the syllables of suspicious or suspect. I sus that the dumbphone was developed as a cheap way for folks who…

For my parents, driving the 2,500 miles between Arizona and our hometown in Steuben County, New York took quite a while. With five children in the family, flying never was an option, nor was staying in Arizona. So we drove. We ate sandwiches in the car or had picnics along the way. Sometimes we traveled…

 During Cousin Camp, when our youngest grandchildren visited us for a week, I encountered examples of xenophobia in news stories, a biography of Rogers Williams and an educational trip we took. Xenophobia – the fear of strangers (or even people who practice unfamiliar lifestyles) is everywhere. For many weeks, my breakfast time has included reading…

 Laughing, giggling, teasing children and teenagers swept through the house once my daughter’s four children joined their trio of cousins. “I knew it would be loud,” I said to my daughter. “It is.” Supper waited while the cousins joined forces to check out the house and each other. We live too far away for any…

Shortly before World War II, when my dad and his twin brother were not yet 10 years old, their dad (Grandpa Hibbard) announced, “We need to build a bigger barn with more stanchions for the milk cows. If we build near that spring it will flow into a cooler with the milk cans. We will…